Chosen by the Netherworld
by I He She
Summary: People used to tell a now forgotten tale about a place where the livings didn't roam. A playground for the spirits, which would sometimes wander to the realm of the livings. And sometimes, this other world itself would choose six people to prevent a great catastrophe from happening. This world was known as the Netherworld, and his chosen ones as the Bearers of the Crest.
1. Meeting in the Forest

**No character class chart. It would contain spoiler I guess. Yeah, the cover is a spoiler. Also, t** **hings will probably take one or two chapter(s) to really get started. Just to warn you.**

* * *

 **Meeting in the forest**

It was an ordinary summer day. A young girl, a child, was running aimlessly through the forest, illuminated by the afternoon sun. She really didn't feel like going back home. Not when that woman was there. Which meant she would have probably kept exploring the forest for another hour, if not two, before going back. The girl had bright, amber eyes and rather long, black hair free of any particular hairstyle. She was wearing light, white and orange clothes. She was moving swiftly and with ease through the vegetation, considering she couldn't be older than ten years, but not enough not to stumble on some tree's roots every now and then. The forest was old there. Almost ancient, if what the elders told her was true. And maybe it was. As she kept running, the trees grew larger and larger, and their branches began to form a net high over her head. As the sunlight decreased, she noticed something. The leaves were glowing. It was faint, but she was sure they were emitting a soft azure light, almost white, with a few shades of green mixen in. She walked closer to an oddly low brach to watch closely, and saw a large number or what looked almost like fireflies resting on the leaves. The girl moved her hand slowly towards a leaf, but the insects immediatly flew away. Or so she thought. Instead, they had stopped a few meters away from her, forming an enticing orb of light. Entranced by it, she walked up to the shining globe, only for it to move away. She started running after it, and completely lost track of everything else. She didn't realize the sun was already setting. She stopped once she had run out of breath, and looked at her surroundings. The trees were even larger than before, their roots so great the earth was hardly visible beneath them. The only lights were the blue ones emitted by the firefly-like insects, which weren't really enought to illuminate the place, which is why she failed to see a lot of things hiding in the shadows, moving around silently.

She immediatly realized she'd got lost. Yet, for some reason, she was still calm. There was a soft breeze there, moving her hair, caressing her skin. She turned, and saw something which wasn't there before. It was a small, greeny flame, roughly half her size, floating in the air, right over one of the many bushes growing around there. It disappeared almost immediatly. The little girl ran up to where it was, but stumbled on a root and ended up falling face-down on the bush. Or rather, inside it. Turned out, it was made of very frail and tin branches, which easily broke under her weight. She didn't immediatly it the ground, or rather, the roots. And when she got up, she found herself in complete darkness. The girl quiclky reached for her necklace and took it off. There was a pendant on it, a small crescent-shaped stone resembling a diamond, which quickly began to glow, emitting enough light to let her see her surroundings. The little girl paid it no importance, but the light from her pendant was exactly the same as the ones she had seen in the forest a few moments ago. She looked around, and realized she had rolled down a short tunnel, large enough for even an adult to easily get through, previously hidden by the small shrub. She had fallen inside a cave. There were small stalactites and stalagmites here and there, but apart from that, she saw nothing relevant. She gave a closer look to the tunnel, and saw enough handholds - mainly tree's roots - to easily climb it. But she didn't get out of there. Instead, she turned to the other side and slowly started walking. The cave wasn't that high, at least not there, and the light of her pendant was enough to light it. She walked close to the wall, until she reached something. It was a person. A man, lying unconscious against the cave's wall. He had black, spiky hairs that reached down to his neck. His clothes immediatly told her he wasn't from her village: he wore white trousers and a white shirt, and even though they were both decorated by red and black lines, the overall design was rather plain. Also, his clothes were consumed, be it by time or by something else. A white, broken helmet with a large, black visor and remains of a golden, simple diadem was resting next to him. The girl walked closer, and noticed something. There was a single wound on him. A perfectly circular hole, going all the way through his shoulder and as large as one of his arms. And from inside the wound, she couldn't see flesh, but only metal. She leaned forward, and suddenly the light from her necklace seemed to explode. It took her around a minute to recover her sight after that flash, and what she saw was the hole in the man's shoulder growing tinner and tinner, a flow of light going from her pendant to the man's body. Before long, the wound had completely disappeared. The man then slowly opened his eyes. Their color reminded her of a summer day's sky.

"... who are you?" he asked.

There was something weird in his voice. It seemed like there was something grinding in his throat.

"... I'm Ara. Ara Haan. And who are you?" she asked, pointing her finger at him, pure curiosity in her eyes.

"My name..." he said, lowering his head. It seemed like he didn't remember it, or at least had trouble bringing it back to his mind.

"... Oberon" he said then.

"What were you doing here?"

"Where is "here"?"

"I don't know. I got lost in the forest"

The man, if he really was a man, tried to stand up, but fell on his knees. He repositioned himself against the wall using his arms, then moved his hands over his knees and ankles.

"You're not feeling well?"

"My legs are damaged. But it seems like some cables came out of their plugs. I should be able to fix something like this"

Ara tilted her head, confused. She had absolutely no idea what he meant with those words.

"How did you end up here?"

"I don't know. My memory circuit appears to be damaged"

"Can you mend that too?"

"Unlikely"

"I can help you get out of here" she said "there's an exit over there"

Oberon examined her with his eyes.

"I doubt you have enough strength to lift me"

"... what should I do then?"

"You can leave me here. It will probably take me a few days before I can stand up"

"I'll come back then"

"You said you got lost"

"But this part of the forest is really easy to recognize: I'll find it again!"

"And how do you plan to get back to your house, if you have one?"

"I do have an house!" she shouted, puffing her cheeks for reasons he failed to understand "And I have my lucky charm! My brother gave it to me!" Ara said as she placed her pendant right in front of his face.

And then, silence. Which didn't really last long. Because children and silence can coexist only when the former are sleeping.

"I'll come back then" she said before turning her back to him and walking back to the tunnel.

Oberon found himself alone in the dark. From not far away, he heard the girl's voice again.

"See you next time!" she shouted.

"Sure" he replied.

Then he wondered why he had answered that way. And decided that it wasn't important. Not in that moment. He had no idea where he was, but more importantly, he had no idea when he was. How much time had he spent inactive? And how did he end up deactivated, in the first place? He tried to search his memory, and realized he didn't even know what reactivated him or how. He moved an hand to his shoulder, and to his surprise, he found nothing. Why was he surprised, again? Was something supposed to be on his shoulder? Far too many questions. But then again, questioning himself was pointless if he could not even step out of there. And so, he started working on his own legs.

Meanwhile, Ara had already left the cave, and was now walking through the same forest, almost aimlessly. She had a vague idea of where she came from, but nothing more. She had put the necklace back around her neck, her pendant hid beneath her clothes, because the small clouds of insects provided enough light to at least see where she was walking. And then , she heard it. An howl, coming from far behind her. She immediatly turned. Wolves? There were wolves in the forest, she knew it, but she thought they never left the higher areas of the mountain. Yet she heard another howl. She turned again, and started running. After only a few steps, shining insects started gathering around her. There were only a few at the beginning, but in just a dozen of steps a real swarm had surrounded her. She kept running, even though she could see nothing but their azure light. The insect kept increasing in number, until they had completely surrounded her. From somewhere behind her, another howl. She didn't stop, even tough she was running out of breath and without seeing where she was going, until all the insects in front of her moved to the side. She suddenly found herself in a familiar part of the forest, rather close to the village. She turned around. All the insects were gone. But in the wind, she heard something.

 _"We'll be waiting"_

She stood there, confused. And she would have probably stood there for quite a long time wondering what just happened, hadn't she heard her brother's voice, calling out for her.

"Ara! Where did you go? Ara!"

She sprinted towards the village, which was were his brother's voice came from. Oddly, she had completely recovered her breath. Aren was near the edge of their villlage, which was rather small, probably around two hundreds of people lived there. Ara ran all the way up to him, and he grabbed her under her shoulders before lifting her up in front of him.

"You know you shouldn't stay out this late" he said "I was worried"

"I don't like that woman"

"She comes here only once every year and stays for a single day, I think you can bear her for just a few hours. And I can't even see what you dislike about her. Ignia's a good person. Also, she's around your age. Calling her woman as if she was already that old is kind of offensive"

"I don't like her" she repeated, giving absolutely no motivations.

Aren sighed, then placed his little sister on his shoulders and walked back to the village. He was tall, considering he was only four years older than her. He had the same eye color of his younger sister, and the same could be said about his hair, reaching down to his waist. His clothes were rather similar to hers as well, but he had a short, slightly curved sword tied to his back.

"Anyway, where have you been all this time?"

Ara looked at the sky, and finally noticed the sun had almost set.

"In the forest. There were lots of shining bugs!"

"Really? That's a rare sight, fireflies aren't that common around here"

"And wolves! I didn't see them, but I heard them!"

"Hey now, how far did you wander? It's dangerous near the top of the mountain, you know you shouldn't go there"

"I didn't go there! They're the ones who came down!"

"Yeah, sure" he replied. He was tired. He would have listened to her story the next day.

They had already reached the village while talking. The houses were all made mainly of wood, and there were a few wells in the middle of the large streets. There weren't many people around at that time, but the few they met greeted them, and Ara cheerfully waved her hands at them, while Aren kept a more formal attitude.

"By the way, Ara. You do remember what day is tomorrow, right?"

"The day of the ceremony"

"Which means you'll have to wake up early. So you'll go to bed right after dinner"

"Eeeeeeehhhhhhh?!"

They then reached a building much larger than the others, at least four times bigger and proportionally more majestic, right at the centre of the village, surrounded by a short wall interrupted by a doorless gate. Aren saw a man there, his back against said gate, and moved Ara from his own shoulders to the ground.

"I have a few things to do now, Ara. You can go ahead"

His sister gave him a slightly annoyed look, then greeted the man and walked to the door, getting inside the large building. Aren turned to the man. He was probably thirty years old, a rather short beard and a pair of small mustache partially hiding his face. He had brown, short hair, wore dark orange, light clothes, a few pieces of plate armor, and carried a two-handed sword on his back.

"Did something happen, uncle?"

"I heard the fox has been talking to herself today too. Do you know why?"

Aren sighed.

"I wish I did. Eun's been acting weirdly these last days, and she seems excited about something. I'm honestly worried about it"

"Don't worry about it too much. She's sealed after all, there isn't much she can do in that condition"

"... you're right on that. But maybe we should postpone Ara's initiation, I have a bad feeling about..."

The man placed an hand on his shoulder, interrupting him.

"As I said, don't think too much about it. I know that you're the village chief, but you should get some rest from time to time and let others do some of your job. I can tell you're tired, the last couple of weeks have been heavy for you, with the travels and everything else. Let the elders take care of Ara for a while, they know what they're doing. And as innovative as you are, it's tradition for the second-born of the Haan to be trained by the elders once reacher ten years of age"

"... maybe you're right, uncle. Thanks"

Truth is, he would have preferred for Ara not to learn their family's exorcism technique, since that meant spending a lot of time with Eun. And, despite having never met her, she had always shown a worrying interest towards Ara. Then they heard Ara shouting from inside the building.

"I told you to stay awayyyy!"

"Come on, let's play together! Just for a while!"

"... seems like Ignia is running after Ara again..."

* * *

It was taking Oberon longer than he had expected to repair his legs. He had no superficial damage, but a quick scan of his system revealed a worrisome number of internal failures. Most of them seemed to have been caused by some form of overload. Oberon was now checking his core, a shining globe he was holding in his hand and linked to his open chest by several cables. The globe opened, and he saw something. The El crystal housed inside not only wasn't glowing: it was shattered, but surrounded by a faint, white light, with several light shades of blue, which seemed to flow inside his system. Which meant what was currently powering him wasn't El. It was similar, but different, mainly because it didn't belong to any of the six categories he knew. The globe closed, and Oberon placed it back inside his chest, which then closed too. Further analysis told him there was actually no El at all inside his system, or at least not any kind of El he could recognize. On the bright side, however, almost all of his numerous damages were rather slight, and even though he could repair only few them without any spare parts, they wouldn't have caused any major problem. The damage to his memory circuit was different. It didn't seem like it failed to register new informations or work on the ones he had, but most of his old files were either damaged or corrupted. He had lost his memory, in human terms, and it was unlikely he would have got it back by himself.

Oberon went back to working on his legs. After what probably were a few hours, he had finished repairing them as best as he could. He then tried to stand up, but it didn't go well. As much as he could stand without falling down, his legs were shaky and unsteady. He moved a few steps around. There wasn't any light, and his internal damage compromised some of his sensorial functios too, which meant he could see only in his immediate vicinity. He kept close to the wall, to avoid getting lost inside there. One step. Two. Three. He sat down, lying against the wall, and considered his options. He had thought he could fix his legs even without spare parts, but the damage was greater than he had first thought. If he wanted to move around properly, he needed something to fix his limbs with. He pondered what seemed his only option, and came to the conclusion that it really was the only one. He took off his tattered shirt and placed his left arm in front of him. Four panels opened on it, and he carefully moved his right hand inside each one, going through the cables and circuits. It was a rather slow operation, but he managed to remove the parts he needed from his arm. The panels closed, and he moved his left arm around to check its functions. There were no problems with approximate movements, but anything which required precision was now probably impossible to perform with that arm. Oberon then clenched his fist. As he had expected, the strenght of that limb had dropped considerably. Likely under the average human level. But that was fine. He had the parts he needed to fix his legs, and he got to work immediatly. This time he finished much faster than before, and when he stood up, his legs were steady. He moved a few steps around again, and this time he had no trouble in doing so.

Which brought him to his next problem. Whatever it was that was powering him, he didn't know how long it would have lasted, and with the El crystal shattered he no longer had unlimited autonomy, since that used to be his power source. Which meant he had to look for another one. He walked to where the little girl pointed when she said there was an exit, and he did find one. He easily climbed out of the tunnel, and looked around. The forest did nothing to help him understand where he was, since it was different from each and every one he could remember. There were no visible reference points, which meant walking away from the cave was the same as getting lost. Oberon wondered if it was better to wait for that child to come back. He wasn't even really sure she would, or could, do it, but if she could, then she could also guide him out of there. But then, again, he had no idea how much time he had left before deactivating. In the end he decided not to wait, but just as he moved a couple of steps, a swarm of insects formed in front of him. He stopped for a moment. The swarm wasn't simply flying in front of him: it was forming words. A short sentence.

-Wait. She's almost here-

That was... unexpected.

"What is this place?"

-The place forgotten by the world-

That was downright stupid. Or rather, it made no sense at all. But before he could ask anything else, the swarm dispersed. Had he been an human, he would have probably sighed. Oberon sat down, and waited. And after a while -half an hour he guessed- he heard footsteps, and saw a blue light approaching.

"Heeeey! Are you there?"

"No need to shout" he replied.

After hearing his voice, Ara started running. And tripped over a root. She got back up, and got to where Oberon was waiting, near the entrance of the cave.

"Hi!"

"How did you find the way? You said you'd gotten lost"

"He guided me!" she said, pointin to a small, floating, green flame.

Oberon sighed. None of that made any sense.

"So, do you know what place is this?"

"No"

Silence. That child was either brave, stupid or overly carefree.

"Are you ok now?" she asked then.

"I can stand, if that's what you wanted to know"

"Then I can show you the village!"

"That'd be appreciated" he answered while getting up.

"This way!" Ara said, pointing to the direction she came from. Oberon had honestly expected her to go some other way.

And so they started walking. Well, the truth is, Ara was simply following the green ignis fatuus which was floating in front of her. And Oberon noticed they were walking quite quickly. Weird.

"What continent is this?"

"Fluone. We're in the north here" she replied.

Finally, something sensible. But then again, how did he end up so far from Altera?

"You said village: how big is it? Are there any cities around here?"

Ara shook her head.

"No, there's nothing around the village. Only an huuuuuge forest. Ah, but the capital is a really big city! But it's so far, it's like it doesn't exist for us"

"Capital?"

"Say, where do you come from?" she asked, turning to face him. And falling after tripping on a root, since she hadn't stopped walking.

"I'm... not sure"

"If you want informations, you can ask my brother. Oh, and we also have a big library at home!"

"Alright"

They kept walking, until the floating flame stopped. It then exploded in a flood of light, which gathered to form a circular gate, apparently made of twisting, orange leaves. On the other side, Oberon could see what seemed to be a normal forest. Ara walked through it, and gestured him to do the same.

"Is this how you got here?"

"Only the second time! I did really get lost the first one..."

That was... magic? Not any kind he knew of, at least. But he crossed it anyway. It was rather small for him, and he had to bent down in order to get through. And after he had done so, the gate faded. Right after he had heard a weak howl in the distance.

"This way! the village is near"

Oberon followed Ara. Maybe, there he would have found some answers.

* * *

 **First finished.**

 **Not much really happened here, I know.**

 **Any kind of feedback is appreciated.**

 **Have a nice day. Evening. Night. Whatever.**


	2. Impending

**Anon: sorry to disappoint but no, this is an unrelated story, not the prequel. I do plan on writing it, just not now.**

* * *

 **Impending...**

Oberon had been sitting in a rather large room, in the first floor of Ara's house, for around ten minutes. There was a table in front of him, but it was far lower than those he was used to. In fact, he was sitting on the floor: there were no chairs to be seen. It was unexpectedly comfortable though. He had been told to wait there: he had expected for his sudden arrival to cause some rumours, but it looked like he had underestimated it. The fact that Ara had accompanied him had proven essential to even get inside the village, since she was the one who convinced the guards to let him in. Judging by the way people treated her, she was probably the daughter of someone either powerful or respected.

Five more minutes later, three people walked inside. One was a young man, whose face resembled Ara's a bit. He was too young to be her father though. Oberon guessed he was the brother she had mentioned. Next to him was an older man, whose only noticeable trait was the greatsword on his back. The third one was an old woman clad in white robes which covered her almost completely. To Oberon's surprise, the young man was the one to sit in front of him, with the other two to his sides, slightly behind him.

"Ara told us she found you sleeping in a cave in the middle of the forest"

"That's correct"

He had decided not to state he was a Nasod too casually. As far as he could remember, his race wasn't unknown in that region, but that was... who knows how much time ago. It could have been a week, it could have been an hundred years.

"That's not possible" said the older man "there aren't any other villages around here, and you also look like a stranger. Where did you come from?"

"Unfortunately, I currently have no memories of that"

"Amnesia, uh?"

The young man checked him out with his gaze. He clearly wasn't convinced by his story, but Oberon's tattered clothes made it sound a bit more realistic.

"What were you doing in the forest?"

"As I've already said, I don't remember. May I ask who I' talking with?"

"My name is Aren, I'm the chief of this village. And you are?"

That was unexpected, for such a young man to be the leader of the village. But it did explain why the guards listened to a child and let him inside. He wondered if he could consider himself lucky, for his first contact to have been with the chief's younger sister.

"Oberon"

"What do you plan to do now? If you want to leave, we have no reasons to stop you. However, there are no inns here, so if you want to stay we'd need to find you an accommodation"

"I get it that travelers are quite uncommon here. And banditry must be either low or nonexistent if a child managed to sneak out to walk alone in the forest. Yet the guards were rather vigil. Why is that?"

Aren exchanged a quick glance with the other two. Then, for the first time, Oberon heard the old woman's voice.

"It's not a secret, there's no reasons not to tell you. In this village is housed the Moon Elstone"

So... that probably explained what it was that was currently powering him. He still had some data about that particular El Shard, sometimes referred to as the Seventh El due to it not belonging to the six elements, but he'd never saw it. Still, the fact that such a powerful source of energy was around didn't explain how said energy got into his system.

"If that's the case, then I must say the surveillance is rather poor"

"Mind your words, stranger" said the older man.

"There've never been attemps at stealing it, if that's what you were thinking. The Elstone itself is the core of a barrier which blocks off most threats" explained the elderly woman. And with threats, she meant mostly demons.

"If possible, I'd like to see this Elstone"

"It's presence is not a secret, but this doesn't mean we let just everyone get too close to it"

"I understand"

"Back on the topic, what do you plan to do?"

"Staying here for a few days is probably be the best thing to do for me. I don't need an accommodation though"

"Hey now, don't treat us like some sort of barbarians. If you're gonna stay here, we'll make sure you have a roof to sleep under" said the old man.

"I appreciate your hospitality then"

The man and the woman then stood up and walked out, leaving Aren and Oberon alone.

"Truth is, Ara did tell me about you, but I thought she had had a dream or something like that"

"That's comprehensible. I myself find my situation weird"

"We said we'd find you a place to stay at, but to be honest, this is the only building with enough free space for someone to move in, even if just for a few days. It may sound rude, but don't cause any trouble while you're here. I have enough things to look after as it is now, and the last thing I need is another mess to clean up"

"I'll try my best"

* * *

The first thing Oberon noticed about that building was the amount of empty rooms in the first two floors. He could say nothing about the third one and the basement though. He had been told not to go there, and at least for the time being, not upsetting the chief seemed important. Anyway, that building was way too big for just the two of them to live inside. Yet that seemed to be the case. Aren had showed him a small chamber with a bed, a writing desk and a chair. It was rather empty, to be honest, but it's not like he had expected anything. And finding a change of clothes inside actually surprised him. Then again, the ones he was wearing were in a rather bad shape. He changed into the new ones. The design was quite different from those he had just took off, but they still had decorative lines over them, though these were yellow and orange instead of black and red, and they were a tad more elaborated. But they were comfortable, so he didn't really care. He made an interal check on his system, and noticed something odd. The Moon El powering him had increased in quantity. Not by much, but it did. He was about to take his core out, to see whetever the shattered El crystal inside it had somehow been reactivated and converted, but before he could do so, Ara barged inside the room, almost breaking the sliding door.

"You're here!"

"So it seems"

"Say, can you play chess?"

"Chess?"

"It's a game whe..."

"I know that game" he interrupted her.

"Then, can you play with me?"

"... you know, for some reason this seems completely out of your character"

Ara puffed her cheeks.

"What do you mean by that?"

"You look more like the type who has an hard time standing still"

"That's not true!"

"I'll keep it in mind"

"Then, the game?"

"Later, maybe"

Ara sat down on his bed. And Oberon stared at him.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm showing you I can stand still"

Children. There was something so incredibly annoying about them.

"What do you like to do in your free time then?"

"You're planning to spend the whole evening here, aren't you?"

"Yup. So, so, what do you play at usually?"

"I told you I don't remember anything"

"Come on, there must be something!"

Oberon chocked a sigh in his mechanical throat and sat down on the floor, in front of Ara. That was as good a time as any other moment to make one more control on his memory circuit, and it didn't look like he could get her to leave with just words either. So he made another check, which took a few minutes. During which Ara called out to him at least four times, as if she was making sure he was still awake.

"... dance. I think there was someone I used to dance with from time to time"

So very disappointing, to find nothing but such a trivial information in his files.

"Ooohhh, you can dance? Can you teach me?"

"You're interested in dancing?"

"Well, my brother can't do it, and..."

"I can do it, depending on how long I'm going to stay here" he said, in a successful attempt at not hearing whatever she was going to say about Aren "But you'll have to wait for our height difference to shrink a bit"

She puffed her cheeks again.

"Ah! I'd forgotten it!"

Oberon said nothing. After a whole twelve minutes of absolute silence, Ara realized he wasn't going to ask her what she was talking about, and decided to simply say it. She grabbed her pendant and showed it to Oberon.

"I already saw that back inside the cave"

"Not this, this!" she said as she brought it closer to Oberon.

The diamond-like stone began to glow and vibrate a little.

"I know how to make it glow, but it does it on its own when you're near!"

More weird things. Oberon reached out to it with his hand, but the very moment he touched it, his system registered a dangerously high energy input. He immediately moved his hand away. Ara gave him a questioning gaze.

"It's nothing, don't worry"

So... that was what had reactivated him. He wasn't sure how it worked, but a new internal check of his systems confirmed that the El inside him was way higher than it was a few minutes ago. Ironically, taking that pendant with him wasn't possible: what just happened told him that direct contact would have caused an overload. Taking directly Ara and the pendant with him didn't seem a good idea. He somehow got the feeling he would have stayed in that village for a very long time.

* * *

It had been a few days since then. At first Oberon had no intention of staying there more than a couple of nights, but he quickly found out that the only thing that kept him active was Ara's pendant. He made a few tentatives at taking it and carrying it around, but it always ended up in a failure. Actually, he noticed the crystal would gradually stop sending El to his system whenever Ara wasn't wearing it. Which is to say almost never, since she had it at her neck basically all the time. Overall, that meant he had no choice but to stay relatively close to Ara to avoid running out of energy. He made a few tests, and found out roughly how far from her he could go before not receiving any more energy, and how quickly said energy depleted to keep him active.

After the first week had passed, Oberon had decided to tell Aren about his being a Nasod and why he was physically unable to leave the village. He had considered coming up with something to keep his nature hidden, but decided it wasn't worth it. He had to prove his words by showing him his core, but after that it turned out Aren was more comprehensive than he had hoped for, maybe because he had traveled around Elrios with his father when he was still alive and had meet a couple of nasods near Altera, and thus wasn't as surprised to meet another one. Not that he had ever imagined hosting one in his house, let alone one in that situation. Oberon questioned Aren about the pendant, and found out it was a fragment of Moon El. Why it acted the way it did, though, he had idea. They decided to have him join the guards at first, but after two weeks of Ara sneaking away from her trainings to go talk -and mainly play chess- with Oberon, the elders made him into her attendant. Which was a weird way to say her nanny, since they basically entrusted Ara to him when she wasn't busy with her training. Why she had such a liking to him, nobody knew, but it sure helped him being accepted by the other villagers. Not that he would have really minded the opposite. Anyway, the whole thing resulted in him becoming the third resident of their house.

Another thing Oberon found out was that there were no children around Ara's age at the village: there had been a pestilence, about which noone wanted to talk too much, when she had three years, that killed every child with less than six years -with Ara being the only exception- , followed by two years during which not a single child was born. Because of that, the villagers began to consider her as a blessed -or cursed- child, Oberon wasn't sure which one really was the case, though after hearing that, he noticed that some villagers seemed uneasy when she was around. Anyway, because of that pestilence, Ara ended up growing almost alone. Her mother died giving birth to her, and her father died of illness before her fifth birthday. As a consequence of that, her brother found himself chief at an abnormally young age, and became too busy to spend as much time with her as she, and he himself, wished he could. Oberon wondered if the reason Ara stuck to him that much was because he treated her like a normal child -a slightly annoying, or rather, clingy one though- and he had time to spend with her. Though she was always the one looking for him, and never the other way around, except for when Aren would ask him to go look for her after she had sneaked off to somewhere.

What Ara's training was about is something he learned directly from her. It was tradition, for the second-born of the Haan family, to learn exorcism. How martial arts were a part of exorcisms, Oberon wasn't sure. But since Aren trained in that as well, it could have been a tradition for the whole family. Another thing he learned directly from her was Eun's existence. Ara told him Eun was a fox spirit sealed in their house's basement. When he asked her if there were other spirits in the village, or in the forest, she told him that only lesser spirits were left: besides Eun, all the medium and great spirits had all disappeared from the mountain.

A couple of weeks later he had been allowed access to the third floor of their house, which was a library. Or, to be more precise, it was the only library of the village. Oberon spent almost five days straight there, going through each and every history book he could find, to get at least an idea of how much time he had spent inactive. His search found no registered events he didn't know about, not important ones at least, and overall it didn't seem he had been out for more than some months, probably two or three years at most. He also tried to find informations about his current situation, but it either was an unprecedented case, or there were no recordings of it there. Not like he was really surprised, though.

After Roughly six more weeks, he learned about the connection between the village and the six El Temples. Once every year, each priestess would come to visit the Moon El, which meant they had a priestess and her escort as guests once every two months.

"To tell the truth" told him Aren "all the current priestess are too old for such a long journey, and who's been coming here for the past two years are those who will succede them in a few years"

"Why do they visit the Moon El?"

"I don't really know, I've never been told that"

Oberon guessed he preferred not to tell him, since that answer really didn't sound convincing.

After that, Oberon tried to find the cave, or at least the part of the forest, inside which Ara had found him, but to no avail. Ara tried to go back there too, on her own, but is was like it had disappeared from the mountain. Eventually, they both stopped trying. After that, Oberon found himself living a rather normal life, which he actually found weir, for seven long, uneventful, somewhat relaxing years. But then it all started.

* * *

Oberon was walking through the forest, something which had become a sort of habit for him. Not that he did it simply because he liked it, tough. He was looking for someone. Namely, Ara. She'd gone out early in the morning, and she had yet to come back. It was rather normal for her, and Oberon had gotten used to it a long time ago. Everybody in the village knew Ara liked to sneak out and have a long, lonely walk in the woods. But only Oberon and Aren, and maybe the elders, knew why she liked it. And that those walks weren't even lonely. He kept searching for half an hour before reaching a particularly large tree with a distinctive dark mark on it. He walked past it, and reached a small lake, characterized by several clods of land emerging from it: from most of said clods had grown a tall, rather big tree, and their foliage cast large shadows over the surface of the water.

Ara was sitting on a considerably low yet rather large branch, swinging her bare feet right above the calm lake. Next to the tree's trunk were both her shoes and her double-headed, black and white spear. As for Ara herself, she had grown quite tall, enough for her head to reach Oberon's shoulder, and considering his height, it could probably be said that Ara was a bit taller than the average person. She wore a black dress which left her neckline rather exposed: the upper part of her torso wa falsely hidden by a thin, quite transparent, dark fabric. Her legs were covered by only a short, black skirt, which covered another, slightly longer, white one. Her arms, instead, were covered by large, white sleeves, held in place with red strings tied right below her shoulders. Her hair was tied, from the base of her neck downwards, into two braids which reached her thighs. Oberon, instead, hadn't changed at all. He was a bit annoyed by it, since he couldn't get any of the components he needed to completely repair himself, nor did he manage to repair his memory circuit.

When she saw him, Ara waved her hand at him.

"Aren will leave for Amel in a couple of hours, I think it's better if you head back"

"Ah, right! I'd forgotten it was today" she replied as she stood up on the branch and walked to her shoes and spear.

She grabbed them and walked towards Oberon, using some rocks hidden right beneath the surface of the lake as support. The several, flying, little bugs that were fluttering around her followed Ara to the shore, where she put her shoes back on. The little swarm was emitting blue light. Those insects always found Ara when she walked inside the forest, and stayed with her as long as she didn't leave the woods. She liked them. They were especially handy at night, since they acted as torches.

"I don't remember this lake" he said, his gaze running over it.

"I found it this morning. It's a nice place, isn't it?"

"... those..." Oberon said, pointing to something unusual. Or rather, wrong.

"... they weren't there a few minutes ago..."

There were footprints on the water. Literally. The lake's surface was bent, as if it was solid, and had the shape of a wolf's footprints. An extremely large one at that. They stopped where Ara had been sitting until Oberon had arrived. As they stared at them, perplexed, more shining insects appeared, grouping in front of them. Then, a whisper.

 _"He hasn't found you yet. Go away. Slowly"_

They looked at each other for a moment, then controlled the lake: the footprints suggested that the wolf -if it really was a wolf- was walking around. They thought they heard also a light snarl, and the sound of something sniffing the air.

 _"Go"_

They both turned around and walked away, slowly. They weren't really agitated though. The whole thing felt kind of unreal, that's probably why they were rather calm. They kept walking for twenty or thirty minutes, until they heard an howl from far away. They started going faster, until they reached the edge of the forest. The firefly-like insects had disappeared.

"... what was that?"

"I have no idea"

 _but... I remember that howl..._

They decided to think about it later, and went back to the village. Aren was already at the gate, talking with his uncle and two of the elders, an horse waiting next to him. Oberon and Ara walked up to them.

"I was wondering whether you'd gotten lost or something" Aren joked after seeing Ara.

"Oh, come on, I'm not a kid"

Aren had grown tall, as much as Oberon, and Ara was a bit bothered by it. Not that she'd ever say it.

"I'll be back in three or four weeks" he said, placing a large bag on the side of the horse's saddle. He had already put two more, smaller sacks on the other side. As for his sword, he was carrying it on his back. "I'll leave the village to you"

"You have nothing to worry" his uncle replied.

And, after a last farewell, he mounted his horse and departed. Ara went straight to their house, while Oberon got dragged into some sort of drinking party by her uncle.

* * *

Meanwhile, someone was watching. On a rather distant escarpment overlooking the village, a gargoyle was standing. Behind him were several, humanoid creatures, somewhat resembling grey lizards. They all wore heavy, steel armors, and each one was holding a weapon. One of them, slightly bigger than the others, walked up to him and bowed down.

"Lord Sark, the troops are almost ready. The last squad will be in position before sunset"

"Wait for the night. And make sure noone escapes. I don't care if you kill them all or take them prisoners"

"What about the Moon Elstone?"

"I'll retrieve it personally. Now go back to your squad"

"As you command" he replied as he walked away.

Sark drove all unneeded thoughts away as he kept looking at the village, foretasting its imminent end.

* * *

 **Second out.**

 **If you're thinking things felt a bit rushed here... then you're right. That's because I wanted for this to be the end the second, and not for the third or fourth, chapter. If you don't like it, then I apologize, but I felt like it would have been too slow of a start otherwise.**

 **Thank you for reading and see you next time.**


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